This invention is generally in the field of optical measurement techniques, and relates to a method and system for optical inspection of a structure formed with a surface relief.
The manufacture of semiconductor devices consists of several procedures applied to a semiconductor wafer to define active and passive elements. The wafer is prepared and one or more layers are deposited thereon. Thereafter, the process of photolithography is performed, in which the surface of a wafer is formed with a pattern conforming to circuit elements. An etching process applied to the uppermost layer follows the photolithography. By desirably repeating these processes, a multi-level semiconductor wafer is produced. Thus, photolithography is one of the main steps in the manufacture of semiconductor devices. It actually consists of the optical image transfer of a pattern from a mask to a semiconductor wafer. The major steps of the photolithography process are as follows:
coating a wafer with a photoresist (PR) material followed by a backing procedure;
exposing the PR to UV radiation through a mask in order to produce a latent image of the mask on the PR;
developing the exposed PR in order to produce a pattern in the form of a plurality of spaced-apart PR-containing regions;
etching consisting of removing the wafer layer underneath the PR layer within the spaces between the PR-containing regions;
removing the PR layer; and
measuring and inspecting the so-obtained patterned structure.
Thus, the structure undergoing the inspection is that resulting from the final etching procedure, i.e., with the complete layer pattern.
Techniques for monitoring the PR coating procedure have been developed, and is disclosed for example in WO 00/12958. According to this technique, which is based on spectrophotometric measurements, the latter are carried out in-situ during the coating and/or backing procedure. The measurements are applied to separate locations on the uppermost, unpatterned, PR-containing layer during the wafer spinning, and a conventional sampling is performed to determine the layer average result.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,872,633 discloses a technique for in-situ measurements carried out during a Chemical Mechanical Plananization (CMP) process, which provides actual thickness of the surface layer of a workpiece. According to this technique, measurements are performed during the rotation of the wafer under polishing. Because of repeating nature of die structure, the wafer surface may be advantageously samples for one full rotation of the wafer, and the measurements taken during that rotation suitable averaged to largely suppress or even cancel out the effect of the non-uniform topology of the dies beneath the uppermost layer (typically SiO2) being polished. In other words, the existing pattern in the underlying layer(s) impedes the thickness measurements on the uppermost layer, and output signals associated with this pattern should therefore be suppressed.
There is a need in the art to facilitate inspection of the results of a PR development process, by providing a novel optical inspection method and system. This is associated with the fact that timely detection of defects introduced during the development stage enables to make corrections (reprocessing), if possible, to timely remove defected wafers from the production line, and/or provide feed-forward closed loop control of the coating/development tool.
Generally speaking, there is a need for a technique capable of measuring in patterned structures similar to those resulting from the PR development process. Moreover, this technique should be performed automatically, i.e., during the wafer movement through a phototrack (i.e., photolithography tools arrangement). A measurement system has to meet the footprint requirements of the conventional phototrack, and preferably eliminating the need for additional wafer handling means, in addition to those existing in the phototrack (i.e., robot or the like typically transporting the wafer between the photolithography tools).
Thus, the main idea of the present invention consists of continuously applying spectrophotometric measurements to a patterned structure progressing on a production line from a pattern-creating tool to a further station, and analyzing measured data to determine whether it satisfies certain criteria results or not.
The term xe2x80x9cpatterned structurexe2x80x9d used herein signifies a structure formed with a surface relief in the form of a pattern containing a plurality of spaced-apart projecting regions defining pits within the spaces between these regions. Such a patterned structure may be composed of layers, in which case the pattern is in the form of spaced-apart regions of an uppermost layer spaced by regions of the underneath layer. The uppermost and underneath layers may have different optical properties, such as in semiconductor wafers.
The term xe2x80x9cpattern-creating toolxe2x80x9d signifies a processing tool applied to a structure to produce a surface relief thereon. Such a pattern-creating tool may be a developer tool or the combination of coater and developer tools typically used in the photolithography tools arrangement, etching tool, stamper used in the manufacture of CD or DVD, etc.
The term xe2x80x9ccriteria resultsxe2x80x9d defines the final results of the technique to be obtained, and as used herein signifies certain predetermined characteristics of the pattern to be produced by the pattern-creating tool. These characteristics may be indicative of the absence (entire or partly) of the uppermost layer (e.g., photoresist), the thickness or non-uniformity of thickness of the patterned layer (e.g., the so-called xe2x80x9cdouble coatingxe2x80x9d of the entire uppermost layer or its separate locations). Generally speaking, the characteristics of the pattern produced by the pattern-creating tool can be indicative of the quality of the pattern-creating process, and can therefore be used for process control, e.g., closed loop control (CLC).
There is thus provided according to one broad aspect of the present invention, a method for inspecting a structure containing a pattern in the form of a surface relief fabricated by a pattern-creating tool applied to structure, the method comprising:
(a) providing reference data indicative of photometric intensities of light components of different wavelengths returned from a structure having a pattern similar to said pattern of the structure under inspection;
(b) continuously applying spectrophotometric measurements to successive locations within the surface relief on the structure so as to inspect a slice thereon;
(c) detecting measured data in the form of a spectrum indicative of photometric intensities of light components of different wavelengths returned from the successive locations within the slice; and
(d) analyzing the measured data to determine whether it correlates with said reference data in accordance with predetermined criteria results.
Preferably, the analysis of the measured data includes analysis of the shape of the detected spectrum, e.g., the number of picks.
The reference data may be obtained by prior inspection of the so-called xe2x80x9cgolden structurexe2x80x9d. Alternatively, an optical model could be utilized based on the known features of the pattern to be created by the tool. Such an optical model can be created on the basis of the known Rigoreous Coupled Wave Theory (RCWT).
Preferably, the continuous application of the spectrophotometric measurements is carried out during the movement of the structure from the pattern-creating tool towards the further station, with a spectrophotometer stationary mounted with respect to a conveying assembly supporting the structure during this movement.
The method can also comprise the step of analyzing the measured data with respect to working parameters of the pattern-creating tool, so as to enable a closed loop feed-forward control of these parameters prior to applying the tool to a further similar structure.
Preferably, the pattern-creating tool is a photoresist developer used in the photolithography process applied to the structure, such as a semiconductor wafer.
Thus, according to another broad aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for in-process inspecting of a semiconductor wafer comprising a surface relief of a developed photoresist layer, the method comprising the steps of
(i) providing reference data indicative of photometric intensities of light components of different wavelengths returned from the wafer;
(ii) continuously applying spectrophotometric measurements to successive locations within the surface relief on the wafer so as to inspect a slice thereon;
(iii) detecting measured data in the form of a spectrum indicative of photometric intensities of light components of different wavelengths returned from the successive locations within the slice; and
(iv) analyzing the measured data to determine whether it correlates with said reference data in accordance with predetermined criteria results.
There are also provided a method for controlling a process consisting of creating a pattern in the form of a surface relief on a structure, and a method for carrying out a photolithography process applied to a semiconductor wafer.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system comprising a pattern-creating tool to be applied to a structure to form it with a surface relief, and a measurement unit operable for applying optical measurements to the patterned structure and carrying quality control of the surface relief.
According to yet another aspect of the invention, there is provided a photolithography tools arrangement for applying to a semiconductor wafer provided with an optical measurement unit and a translation unit operable to carry out a relative displacement of the wafer relative to an optical arrangement of the measurement unit during spectrophotometric measurements within a slice on the wafer.